


And Suddenly Hades Was Only a Man...

by Aproclivity



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Alex is Persephone, Alex is clever af, Alex just started wanting to pet Strand's dog, Alternate Universe - Hadestown Fusion, Amalia is Artemis, Amalia ships Stragan, Coralee is Demeter (she and Strand weren't married), Did you know that you needed a Hadestown style hades and persphone meeting au?, F/M, Gods naming themselves, Look we're going to ignore what actually happens in the show after this because you know, Nic is Hermes, Paul is Apollo it's not great but, Strand is Hades, Strand's gotta Strand, Terry is Zeus because he sucks, The Greek gods are all kinda related so incest is semi alluded to but not mentioned, cause that's what they is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28694211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aproclivity/pseuds/Aproclivity
Summary: When Strand comes to collect a soul, he finds a beautiful woman with the sun on her shoulders, the wind in her hair, the smell of the flowers she held in her hand and the pollen that fell from her fingertips: Alex Reagan. Or Hades meets Persephone through a Black Tapes lens.
Relationships: Alex Reagan/Richard Strand, Amalia Chenkova/Alex Reagan
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	And Suddenly Hades Was Only a Man...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arriva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arriva/gifts).



> Okay so I love Hadestown a lot. I also love The Black Tapes, obviously. It was only natural that my brain combined the two of them at some point. (Mythologies really doesn't count.) I know Imitationgirl also loves Hadestown, so it seemed a natural merging of the two with a fic. This fic is their meeting and their decision for the six months. We're going to ignore all the stuff that happens later. Happy Holidays, and I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Given the musical nature of this fic, it _obviously_ has a playlist that is mostly Hadestown and it can be found here on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2pbq5MeBxZtFoJiG8FNGdj).

**i**  
Her family has always told her to stay away from him. Even when there’s parties at her father's house on Olympus where all of the Gods are supposed to be in attendance (even her, though her mother tries to keep her away from the family as much as she can. Her mother spends an awful long time talking about “ideas” that Alex’s cousins may have towards marrying her.) he’s not present. Alex had asked once, when she was younger and been told that Death had no place at a party. 

She’d always thought that was cruel, considering how few choices they all had in what they were the gods of. (Besides everyone knew that her father and uncle had cheated when they drew their lots for their kingdoms. He hadn’t instead leaving it to logic and reason to decide. Yeah, she thought it was dumb as a kid too.) But Alex had never asked to be the goddess of the Spring and of flowers and growing things. That had come from Coralee, her mother. Even her name had until Alex had changed it. 

God’s changing names was nothing new. They went through them like followers went through lives, and Alex definitely didn’t want to be ‘Kore’ after her mother once she had started to be old enough to think for herself. 

Of course her mother didn’t agree with that, which is why Alex was kept in her garden when she wasn’t needed to bring forth the bounty that humans needed. Desperate and lonely, some of her mother’s (and cousins’, Amalia, the goddess of the hunt was always good to loan her some priestesses to show Alex how to hunt) humans had been allowed into the garden so that she would have companionship and stories so that Alex wouldn’t go looking beyond that wall. 

Even if she did, every time Apollo drove his chariot over it. 

But human lives are brittle and quick, barely a blink in the life of a goddess, even one who is as young as Alex is. For the most part, when one of her humans died, her brother Nic would come and take her along to the Underworld. Of course, that had stopped the last time that Nic had tried to help smuggle her out as well, so now when one of her humans died, Alex doesn’t know what’s going to happen. If nothing else, they can’t just leave her here, it’s not sanitary and it’s not fair to someone who Alex has considered a friend for years. 

Kneeling next to her friend, Alex just hums softly, waving her hand and creating a bed of flowers around her body, covering Emily with a wreath of baby’s breath and folding her hands over her chest. When someone new enters her garden, Alex knows that she’s never met them before. Rising to her feet quickly, Alex looks at the man who’s appearing in the shadows, stepping through them with what is unmistakably a long and dramatic sigh as he steps closer to her. 

Alex knows beauty, she’s been surrounded by it her entire life. Her siblings (for the most part) are all inhumanely beautiful and Alex knows that she’s not an exception to that rule. Hells, it’s one of the reasons that she’s been banished to this garden with so few people to see her. Because to her mother, seeing means seducing, and seducing means men, so she’s never really considered just what it was that Alex and Amalia got up to when the two of them were together without her priests or her mother’s being nosy. 

“Oh,” Alex’s voice is soft, and she’s taken at the beauty of the sight of him even as he steps forward, releasing the shadows like water falling away from him. There’s a dog at his side, and Alex knows that he probably brought it to make himself seem more imposing, or at the very least to make her frightened. If it was someone else, she probably would be frightened honestly, but Alex is rarely good at being frightened when she should be, even if the dog does have three heads that look as if they can’t make up their minds or not if they wanna growl at her. 

“Can I pet your dog?” The words are quick and soft and honestly more of a preamble to her doing it rather than her actually waiting for permission. Her fingers touch the left head before Strand can even answer her, and his response is just a long sigh. However the dog whines softly and presses into her hands eagerly, moving forward to layer a broad swatch of saliva along her cheek. 

The annoyed sigh comes once more before he speaks softly. “If you don’t mind, Kore, I do have business to attend to and would like to get on with this as soon as possible. Seeing as _your mother_ ,” Strand says it as sharply as possible and Alex just frowns for a moment. “Has banned Nicodemus from doing his sworn duty and she is known to hold quite a grudge I would rather not linger.” While the ‘any longer than I have to’ may not be spoken, Alex hears it as clear as day. 

“That’s not my name. Kore, I mean.”

“What?” Strand just stares at Alex for a long moment as if he hasn’t understood what she’d said. 

“My name isn’t Kore. It’s Alex. I’m not a little girl and I refuse to be called one anymore.”

Strand laughs; it’s low and it’s huffy and Alex can tell that it’s definitely in spite of himself that he does it. “Very well then, Alex.” The man bows low and grandly and Alex is most assuredly charmed in return. “I’m Strand.”

“I know you who are,” Alex says as she curtsies in return the white of the dress that her mother insists that she wears stained here and there in green and gold and good brown earth. His eyes shine and they’re like sapphires that Alex has seen at Olympus and they almost threaten to take her breath away. She watches him in the back of his suit, the darkness of it stern and unbroken and Alex just weaves her fingers over the buttonhole in the breast of it, creating a flower there. The color is the deep blue of his eyes, matching them along with a darker green stalk and a leaf. Strictly speaking, her mother didn’t approve of flowers that Coralee herself didn’t create, but Alex loves doing it and it doesn’t seem like Strand is likely to tell her mother about doing it, even if he were to tell her of their conversation. “There.” The word is soft, and Alex steps back the half step that she’d taken in to place the flower there. 

Strand, for his part, looks as if he can’t believe that she’s done it. He stares at the flower, and then he stares at her before he looks to the flower once again and Alex can’t help but to wonder if other than the offers that humans left him, and the helm of invisibility that came as being a sign of authority for being the King of the Underworld anyone had ever given him anything before in his life. Maybe Strand simply wasn’t someone who one gave gifts too; and Alex reaches out to touch the floor again. “Sorry, I can…” Get rid of it is what she means. 

“No. Please don’t,” Strand’s voice is soft and low, and it curls around Alex’s stomach like a cat. For a moment she had assumed that what he’d meant was for her not to touch him, but instead his hands curl protectively around that little blue flower like Alex has seen humans do around fire when the wind howls at night. As she draws her hand back, Strand speaks again softly. “Thank you. It’s very precious. But I don’t think it will live in my realm very long. Nothing does.” He sounds so very sad that it breaks her heart; honestly Alex can’t imagine not being surrounded by living things. It's the only reason why she partially says what she does next—the rest of it she doesn’t think about until later.

“When it does,” her voice is so earnest Alex is almost embarrassed by it. “Come back and I’ll make you another one.”

In response, Strand just stares at her so intently it makes her flush. “You’d like me to come back? Without needing to collect a soul?” His voice is soft and full of a quiet disbelief. 

“Yeah! Well, if you wanted to, I mean. I know you’re a very busy man.”

“Hm.” Strand just says monosyllabically and entirely free of any commitment. “Perhaps I will. Cerberus should get more exercise.”

“Well, I mean I’d love to see him again next time!” And not just him, but there are some things that even Alex doesn’t dare to say. 

“As you wish.” Strand takes her hand and kisses it gently before he adds, “until next time, Alex.” He doesn’t give her a chance to reply before the shadows surround him and he’s gone. 

**ii**

It’s a little over a month before Strand returns once more. Honestly, Alex had thought that he wasn’t going to come back and she had burrowed her disappointment into her work. The fighting between herself and her mother is at an all time high, and Alex finds herself going further and further towards the edges of her prison and staying out as often as she can. Today Alex is out in the fields of wheat, rubbing her hands over them in a way that is far more bitter than she likes. Today is another party on Olympus and even though her father had specifically requested her attendance, Coralee had refused. There has already been two intense thunderstorms this afternoon, a sure sign that her father was displeased, but there’s still no sign of Nic or any summons for her. 

This time, Alex had missed the shadows that announced Strand’s arrival as the wind caught her hair and tossed it over her bare shoulders and her face. It’s not until something solid collides with her and knocks her to the ground before three heads are intensely licking everywhere that they can reach that she even knows she’s not alone. “Cerberus!” The name is sharply spat and the dog whines as he gets off of her before Strand speaks again. “Alex, are you alright?” Missing the concern in his voice isn’t an option for her and Alex can feel herself get very warm. 

“I’m fine! I just didn’t realize that I wasn’t alone. It would take more than just some puppies to hurt me.” For a moment, Strand looks as if he’s going to protest Alex’s calling Cerberus a puppy, but he doesn’t. Instead he just watches her for a long moment like he’s still not certain of whether or not this is a good idea. Realizing that he was here because her mother is gone at her father’s party, Alex isn’t about to lose any of the precious time with him, and she just adds, “I’m glad you decided to come back. How’s your flower? I didn’t think that it would have lasted anywhere near this long.” 

“It didn’t,” Strand’s voice is quick. “But I dried it. It’s in my office on my desk. Dried flowers still manage to maintain at least some of their original fragrance at least for a while and…” Pausing, and reaching up to touch the knot of his tie, the God of the Underworld looks a bit out of his depth. “Apologies, I didn’t wish to intrude…” 

“You didn’t!” Alex assures him just as rapidly. “I’m really glad to see you, I just didn’t think…” That he was coming back, obviously and from the look on Strand’s face, she can tell that he didn’t think he was coming back either. Maybe he didn’t want to come back--Coralee was well known to be a monster when she’d needed to be, and there were few things that she was monstrous about as the defense of her daughter. A daughter that Coralee still considered a child even though she was older than her siblings and cousins and they were all able to make their own decisions and the like for years now. 

“Yes, well, I wasn’t certain if my return was simply nothing more than an imposition on an offer that was only made to be polite.” Without giving her a chance to respond, Strand continues. “But I am here now. I thought perhaps you’d like to walk Cerberus with me? I remember your fondness for dogs, and he most assuredly seems to have a fondness for you as well, Alex. There has been more than one morning when I do believe that he was pining for you.” There’s something beyond his words, a meaning that Alex understands--or at the very least she believes that she does. His words cause Alex to feel warm all over, and she just tucks her hand into the crook of his arm and turns to start walking. For a moment, Strand falters, his mouth opening and closing before he lightly places his hand over her hand in response. 

The course of the sun that Apollo’s chariot has charted across the sky is long over when Alex and Strand part, and this time when he leaves her, there are two flowers in his lapel and she can feel the warmth of his lips lingering against her forehead as he promises to return. 

**iii**

It’s only a week since Strand had left her last time, and Alex is very much surprised when she sees him in her mother’s garden. For the first time, her mother is close to them, and Alex drops the flowers that she’d been holding in shock. Cerberus isn’t with him, which is probably a good thing considering how the dog loves to bark when he sees Alex and she realizes that’s probably the reason that Strand hadn’t brought him along this time. Moving quickly but silently to catch him before her mother can, Alex just takes his arm and leads him out to one of the fields that are currently fallow, so she knows that Coralee isn’t likely to come around looking for her. There’s no reason for Alex to be here, and if nothing else that should buy them some time before her mother decides to use some of the less polite ways of finding her mother than just speaking to the land and plants around them.. 

“Are you okay?” Alex’s voice is soft and worried, whispering even though there probably really isn’t any reason for her to do so. “I didn’t expect you again so soon! I mean, not that I’m not glad to see you, because of course I am! I just…” 

“Alex,” he says softly, looking deeply into her eyes. Whatever tumultuous emotion that there had been before stills as Strand just breathes in and out, with his hands wrapped through her own. She watches him in return, waiting for him to say what he’s thinking but while he opens his eyes and closes them once more, Alex wonders if he knows what it is that he wants to say. His lips form syllables at first, but no air passes them to allow the sounds that he’s making to flow outwards. It takes him a moment before he can manage sound, low and deep and the sort of thing that Alex is fairly certain that she can feel welling up from the ground rather than from within the depths of his chest below his suit. “ _La, la, la._ ” The melody is beautiful and familiar to her as her own heartbeat even though Alex had never heard it before (no one had). In some ways, it’s almost as if the symphony that creates the universe has that sound at the very building blocks of it. 

But that’s not all of it—and Strand is just as surprised by this as Alex is—but when he’s finished singing it an odd crimson flower blooms into his hand. Both of them stare at it for a very long moment, before Strand falls to his knees in the dirt before her. “Alex,” he says softly, and somehow that sound is still weaving itself around them. “I…” he starts and then stops, “that is to say that I have feelings for you. And if you don’t have them for me, I beg you to please have pity on my heart and tell me now before this goes any further. And if you do have feelings for me, I ask that you consider coming home with me and being my wife.”

“Richard,” Alex’s answer is soft. “Do you mean it?”

“With every part of my being, Alex.”

She kisses him then, and then draws him down into the dirt with her, the flowers and seeds that she was holding falling around them and bursting forward into new life as the filled is suddenly filled with the crimson flowers of Richard’s forming into their marriage bed. 

**iv.**

Alex goes with Richard into the Underworld, letting him carry her breathless and running through the dark corridors carved of rocks and dotted with gold and glittering gems. As soon as they had crossed the threshold, the gates sealed themselves against any god who might attempt to enter, other than Nic whose job it was to ferry the dead for their judgment. Even then, Coralee made her displeasure known as she screamed in rage at Strand so loud that the very souls and Titans themselves shivered to hear it. 

As for Alex herself, she just did her best to ignore it—let her mother be angry; she had chosen to come here as Richard’s bride of her own free will and volition, there wasn’t a God or King who could separate the two of them now. Alex was the Queen of the Dead now, and everything else didn’t matter. So they honeymooned as the storms raged and swirled around the planet above them. 

They didn’t know it yet, but as soon as Alex had said yes and kissed Strand, the world had started turning, spinning itself into beginning like a spider unspooling her web. 

Very few things grew among the dead, but Alex nourished what did flourish within the confines of Hades, enjoying every hard won victory. Pomegranates bloomed, ruby and vibrant and when she presented her husband with one he’d laughed and kissed her as they’d shared it, making love in their stone tub afterwards, trying to scrub away the juice from it that stained fingers and skin and lips. 

But their period of peace (even with her mother) came to an end when Nic brought far too many souls to the shores of the Styx. “The sun won’t shine,” he’d told them as he’d sat at their carved stone table. “Nothing will grow. It’s bad, Alex. Very bad.” For her part, Alex doesn’t know what to say, and Strand says nothing. Soon Nic doesn’t have time to linger—all of his time is spent ferrying the ever increasing numbers of souls that swarm the ranks of the dead. 

Alex doesn’t know when Terry, her father, appears to her husband. The distance forced on them by her mother means that she isn’t able to sense his presence here in Hades as Alex keeps toiling away in her garden. 

“Leave.” That’s the only thing that Strand says when the King of the Gods stalks into his office like he owns it. 

“No. We need to have a discussion, Richard. You have to let her go.”

“I have to do no such thing. Alex is _my wife_. Her home is here with me. She’s not leaving.”

“Look, I know you’re lonely here and have been for a long time, but Coralee is livid. She’s not going to calm down. You have to let her go. We both know that she can’t be happy here.”

Strand’s voice is as cold as the grace and as horrible as it is too. “Is it so difficult to think that she’s chosen to be here? That she’d choose me?”

“She’s young and flighty and stubborn. Coralee is saying that you’d kidnapped her. Now, I don’t think you’d do that but that’s what her mother is telling everyone who’d listen. Let her go.”

“And if I don’t?” His voice is mild but there is nevertheless an implicit threat within it. 

“Richard no one wants another war! No one can afford one and that includes the planet herself! Just tell her to come home. Let her come home and find some pretty mortal or a dryad or something to take to wife. This as it is cannot stand.” 

“If you knew your daughter at all, Terry, you would know that Alex makes her own decisions. I’m not going to take them away from her. She knows her own mind better than anyone I’ve ever known. I’m not going to just give her up because you demand it.” 

“Then you better come up with something, Richard. Because you are hereby summoned by your King to appear on Olympus to answer the charge of kidnapping that Coralee lays before you. And make sure you bring your wife. I want this over as quickly as possible.” Terry doesn’t give Strand a chance to reply before he simply leaves Hades, and leaves Richard alone with his thoughts. 

Later, that night when the two of them are having dinner, Strand just watches Alex as she chatters and talks about her day and eats. Finally when Richard can bear it no longer, he just asks her softly: “Alex, are you happy here?” 

“Yes of course! Why are you asking me that, Richard?” The confusion is evident in Alex as she watches him set the golden fork down next to it’s matching plate, leaving the food on it untouched. 

“Your father came to see me today. He demands that I let you go. It seems that your mother has been telling people that I’ve kidnapped you. I’m supposed to return you to Olympus in order to answer the charges.” 

“But he didn’t even ask me if that’s what happened! Of course I wasn’t kidnapped. No one would have been able to kidnap me! I can take care of myself. Hells, let me guess, he plans on just handing me back over to my mother so she’ll stop her little fit so that no more of his pets will die?” Richard doesn’t respond to Alex’s question, but she knows that she’s right. “No. I’m not going back. I love you and I married you. I am old enough to make my own decisions and I’d choose you any time!” 

Richard sounds exhausted and like he’d entirely lost any hope for the two of them. “I don’t think they plan on giving you a choice, wife.” 

“Well then they’re stupid because I’m not going and they can’t take me. Listen...I have an idea.”

**v.**

When Strand arrives on Mount Olympus at Terry’s absurdly ornate palace he’s alone. Well, at the very least he’s alone until Amalia, the goddess of the Hunt falls into step with him. As always, she’s armed, but the bow is resting flat against her back rather than in her arms, much to Strand’s surprise. It’s a surprise that he doesn’t bother to hide when he speaks. “What you haven’t come to arrest me for kidnapping Alex?”

“While Terry may have sent me down for that purpose I do not believe that you have kidnapped anyone.”

Staring at her, Strand’s shock is immediate. “You don’t?”

“You should close your mouth before anyone else sees you, looking like a fish catching flies isn’t going to do you any favors.” One Richard’s lips are closed, Amalia continues. “And no, of course I don’t. No one who actually _knows_ Alexandra believes her mother’s tales. Alex would not have allowed herself to be kidnapped, and she certainly wouldn’t allow herself to be held. She is both too stubborn and too well-trained for that. No, I believe that she has chosen to go into the Underworld willingly. Unfortunately I do not believe that her mother will be convinced.”

“I know she won’t,” he doesn’t bother to hide the darkness in his tone. “But I don’t believe that’s going to matter. Alex has come up with a plan.”

Amalia just laughs quickly. “Of course she did. I would expect nothing less. If Coralee attacks you, you may count on my bow to defend you. But if you ever hurt Alexandra I will hunt you to the darkest edges of your realm.”

“If I ever hurt her, I’d expect you to.” Amalia just nods once in response and the two of them walk into the audience chamber silently. 

“You bastard! Where is my daughter? Where is Kore?! You will produce her at once and then you will be exiled at once back to your realm never to return to it!” Coralee just shrieks the words, but her speech and threats are cut off by the booming of a thunderclap. 

Even for it happening, Terry’s voice is mild. “This is my court, Coralee. Not yours. And it’s my decision what will happen within it.” His attention is quickly turned to Strand and his own displeasure is evident. “You failed to bring Kore as was discussed.” 

Strand stands his ground, his face a mask of polite inquiry as his blue eyes stare into Terry’s. “No I didn’t.”

Terry’s face shifts into a mask of anger. “I don’t see her and she’s not on Olympus or Earth. I cannot sense her there.”

“I did not produce Kore because Kore no longer exists. She, like all of us, has decreed her own name and her own realm of Godliness. She is Alexandra Reagan and she is my wife and the Queen of the Underworld.”

Coralee’s voice is immediate and infuriated. “That is impossible! She is a child! She cannot name herself! She cannot claim anything.”

“Really _Demeter_?” The calmness in Strand’s tone has an edge on it. “You yourself did the same thing when you claimed your realm after the war. As did Zeus. As did I. As did every other god assembled here today. We claimed our own names and it has been a function of how adulthood works for us for millennia. Alex herself has claimed her name over two hundred years ago. You simply refused to acknowledge it because you wished to keep her under your control, Coralee.”

“This is true. I have known her as Alexandra for _well_ over two hundred years. Coralee refused to use it even though that is the name that Alex herself used. Not only with Strand and myself, but also with Nicodemus and her mortals and dryads. It was functional and not a fantasy. The mortals address her as Alex as well. She is Alexandra and Coralee kept that from you, Father.”

Terry’s face reddens, and he whirls on Coralee, the world around them electric and sharp. “You have denied her coming to Olympus for two centuries, Coralee. You refused my commands to have her here to take her place among her brethren. I thought she was simply sheltered and shy but now to find this is subterfuge…”

“She is a child!” Coralee shrieks. “I kept her home and away from all of you so that she wouldn’t be seduced by the first man who came along! Strand wasn’t meant to be in my realm and yet he was and he stole my child! I demand vengeance.”

“He wasn’t trespassing.” Amalia’s voice is cold. “You refused to allow Nicodemus to do his duty and collect the soul of the mortal Emily Dumond. You would have kept her soul rotting in your garden if Richard had not come to fulfill his duty to the human. He did nothing wrong.”

Strand looks surprised at Amalia’s defense of him and then he looks to Coralee with his mouth set. “And the other times I was there with express permission of Alex. She asked me to come. We were married there in your garden. That cannot be changed. Our vows are sacred and they were made willingly and with love. The world itself began to turn because of our marriage. There is nothing untoward or wrong about this. I love Alex and Alex loves me.”

“Then where is she?” Coralee’s voice is sharp and harsh. “You say that she is willing and loves you but yet she is not here to say this herself!”

“She is judging the mortals in our realm. There are too many to simply allow them to languish. Alex is the one who chose to stay because she couldn’t bear the thought of them simply waiting in pain and uncertainty of not knowing where they would rest.”

“There is more,” Amalia says quickly and she reaches into her satchel and removes a red flower from it, a red flower that despite everything else dying around them is flourishing. “When Strand and Alex were married, he created this flower. It blooms still. The Earth itself has blessed this union. No one other than the two of them can do anything to separate them.”

Before Strand can speak again, Terry does. “That is all well and good but nothing else will grow! Our mortals will die!”

Paul’s voice is soft when he speaks, the warmth of the sun that he drives across the earth still present even if he cannot make it light. “The sun will not shine on anyone while she is gone.”

“Alex has sent me with a solution for that as well…”

**vi**

Alex had been sitting in front of the fire in their bedroom with Cerberus on her lap and was idly petting him when her husband came into the room. Moving the disgruntled dogs’ heads from her lap, she jumps up and liberally tosses herself into her husband’s arms. “You’re early! I didn’t expect you until much later!”

Strand’s voice is deep and amused as he catches her. “Well, I missed you.” Catching Alex’s chin with one hand, he raises it up and presses his lips to hers, allowing himself to kiss her for a very long time before she pulls away. 

“What happened? What did they say?” As ever, Alex isn’t able to stop herself from asking questions even when she’s not at all sure that she wants their answers. 

“Well, it went off as you said it would. You truly have an uncanny understanding of the politics of Olympus despite very rarely spending time there, wife.” The word is laced and heavy with meaning, as if Strand truly hadn’t allowed himself to fully embrace it before now, just in case the happiness had been snatched from him as it had so many times before. 

“Six months?”

“Six months. Half of the year in the sunshine. I’m not going to lie to you, Alex it’s going to be difficult but…”

Alex silences Strand with a kiss. “But I’ll come back. I’ll always come back to you. And I’ll write. And you’ll come up to visit me like you did before.”

He sighs softly, fighting down the jealousy at sharing his wife with the sun and the earth above. But six months is worse than never having her again. He can handle six months. Richard Strand can handle anything with the woman by his side. “You leave in three days. I told them it was needed in order to make certain arrangements here.”

“Three days,” Alex agrees and it doesn’t feel like anywhere near enough time. She kisses him once more before the tiny goddess moves onto her top toes and sings into his ear. “ _La la la_.”

Strand’s response is immediate. “ _La la la…._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are love.


End file.
